• The Highly Qualified Teacher initiative is a federal mandate that requires states to demonstrate the alignment between teachers’ academic preparation and their content area teaching assignments through each state’s licensing system.
     
    Definition of the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT)

    To Satisfy the Federal Definition of Highly Qualified, Teachers Must: 
    Have at least a Bachelor’s degree
    Have valid state certification
    CE and CEAS are considered state certification
          No requirements have been waived
          No emergency or conditional certificates
          Demonstrate content expertise in the core academic subject(s) they teach

    3 Definitions of Teachers
    New Teacher: Novice in first year of teaching
    Newly Hired Teacher: Experienced teacher in first year in a new district
    Veteran Teacher: Teacher who has been teaching one year or more
     

    Who Needs to Demonstrate Content Expertise
     
    Required to Demonstrate Content Expertise
    Teachers of the Following Core Academic Subjects:
    Arts (Music, Theater, Dance, Visual Arts)
    English
    Foreign Languages
    Lang. Arts
    Math
    Reading
    Science
    Social Studies
    Economics
    Geography
    Government/Civics
    History
     
    Not Required to Demonstrate Content Expertise
    Personnel in the Following Areas:
    Preschool teachers
    Health/Physical Education
    Educational Services Personnel
         Librarians
         Guidance Counselors
         LDT-Cs, Psychologists, Social Workers
         Speech-Language Specialists
    Vo-tech
    Business
    School nurses
    Family and Consumer Science
    Technological Literacy & Technical Education
    Special education teachers providing in-class resource programs
    Special education teachers providing pull-out support resource programs
    Special education teachers providing consultation as a service
    Teachers of Gifted and Talented who do not provide direct instruction
     
     
    For more information on Highly Qualified Teachers Initiative see related links below.
     
     
    linkRelated Links
       
                 http://nj.gov/education/profdev/nclb/    
Last Modified on November 2, 2009